[jkl1185]

I do educational trainings in the outdoors. I usually bring along about 200 pages of reference material that I lug around in a backpack.

I have a Macbook but Im not going to risk ruining it while camping out or crashing around in the woods. A lot of times, we also don't have access to electricity so it wouldn't do much good.

I also work in areas with no phone signals.

Now, if you were me, would you buy a PDA to store documents or would you get a smartphone? I hear PDA's are obsolete and I also hear that smartphones are not that good for documents.

[nonhuman]

eBook reader?

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/....com/index.php

[scaught]

The good thing about a PDA for what you're talking about would be battery life. If you get an olderish Palm with a black and white screen it will last a good while before you need to charge it or put in new batteries. Smartphones typically last about a day. I'm not sure about the kindles/ebook readers of the world...

[nonhuman]

Kindles/Sony Readers/anything that uses an eInk display will have amazing battery life, because they only use power when changing the content on the screen. So once you load up a page it uses zero power until you load a different page. According to Sony, that means a battery life of weeks.

[turtle777]

200 pages ?

How thick is the manual, what does it weigh ?

I don't think considering an electronic version just for that makes sense.
If you were talking about many hundred pages, and multiple manuals, then yes, a Kindle or something similar could make sense.

-t

[jkl1185]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Yeah, I bring around 200 pages but that's what I distill it down to. In doing this, I have to leave out a lot of other documents that I would like to bring. I also end up wishing I had brought additional documents because something unforseen always comes up.

After a couple of days, most of my paper docs have been shuffled and reshuffled so many time they are a mess.

The kindle device looks interesting.

Would people rule out a smartphone?

[freudling]

I would rule out a smartphone, yes. Much too small and byzantine for negotiating documents. Don't convince yourself you can do it. But I will say this... the iPhone, if I had to choose smartphones, would be my number 1 pic if I was in your situation.

FYI, I use a PDA for my daily business activities, and to read eBooks. Guess which one it is? A Newton 2100. It's great. Stylus input and large screen with long battery life... can't beat it. I can mark up pages that I am reading, etc.

For modern PDAs (well, more modern than the Newton), find something like the Sony TH-55. This latter was the best PDA of its time, outside of the Newton that was long antiquated when the TH-55 came out. 320 x 480 screen is nice and long for reading, and Documents to Go allows you to quickly and easily view documents (i.e. Excel or Word).

But as others have suggested, that Sony eReader is great, so if this is something that you just want to read documents on, alongside having your phone, a modern ebook reader is the way to go.

[ajprice]

iPod touch? As freudling said, if it had to be a smartphone then go iPhone, but the touch, in airplane mode and reading documents only, should be pretty good. Apple say 36 hours music playing life on a charge - http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/specs.html , don't know how realistic that figure is.

[Jawbone54]

I actually second the iPod touch.

Also, check out Memory Stick from the App Store.

[freudling]

Memory Stick is not getting such hot reviews right now...
But worth looking at if you already have an iPod Touch. Anyway, I would not go with the iPod touch... too small and poor input capability.

I demoed the Sony Reader PRS 505 ($299). A bit slow, but amazing screen and the text just jumps out. However, no backlight (optional add on though)... which is a problem (their 700 model has a backlight but the screen is not as nice as the 505).

For reading, the Sony Reader blows away any small device like an iPod Touch, iPhone, other Smartphones, etc. Go check it out for yourself, its worth the trip down (the new ink screens are incredible).

[nonhuman]

The Sony Reader and Kindle may not have built-in lights, but since they're eInk you can use an external light just as you would with a paper book. They really are pretty awesome pieces of technology (I'm hoping the rumors about the Kindle 2 coming out next month are true and that once it does I'll be able to pick up a Kindle 1 cheap).

[Jawbone54]

If the Kindle 2 doesn't look like a 1970s piece of crap, I might consider buying one.